An Historian's Conscience

As I make my way through our re-cataloging project, I know I'm handling a lot of mundane materials that are probably candidates for weeding (like many books on the sport of Golf from the 1940s through the 1960s); but every now and then I uncover a gem that we've been hiding from the world, such as two multi-volume sets of Documentary History of the American Labor Movement, one published in the Nineteen-teens, the second edition published in the late 1950s. Both sat in our online catalog for years with very minimal records and the generic subject heading (651) of "United States."; Holdings were NOT attached in OCLC, so WorldCat did not reflect our ownership of this item. I have brought in the full catalog records from OCLC and attached our holdings, so now the world knows we own these sets, and also, our patrons have better bibliographic access to these two multi-volume sets.

Basically, I helped to recover a fragment of American memory. These are the kind of things that keep me going, that affirm to me, yes, this project is worth seeing through to the end. Recovering buried history. It is my conscience as a historian, more so than merely as a librarian, that drives me forward in this endeavor. If I did not have my background in History, I question whether I would be as relentless and zealous in finishing this re-cataloging project. There were other catalogers before me who saw fit to ignore the problem or felt it was too overwhelming to tackle, or just didn't care, or most likely, some combination thereof.

In a related vein, yesterday at Recycled Books, I bought an old used NRA publication from 1969, written by the then National Rifle Association president, titled To Keep and Bear Arms. I bought it not that I expect any particularly new or useful insights for the ongoing debate today necessarily (though sometimes this is the case, by serendipity) but as a record of American intellectual history, the history of ideas. Published in 1969, this book would have come out in the wake of the Gun Control Act of 1968. It also notes that the author's grandmother once broke up a KKK rally by firing her .22 LR pistol in the air. The book also bemoans the decline in basic marksmanship in the U.S. military and it's alleged toll on the Vietnam battlefield as a result. While that probably overstates the case, it's an interesting wrinkle in military history, too. The book is important to me for the way it captures a snapshot of the American Zeitgeist, circa 1969. While no library would collect this book if they didn't already have it, and while a Public library would be right to weed it, an Academic institution by contrast would be well advised to retain it. The book may no longer serve its original practical purpose, but it serves as a snapshot preserving human culture and history from the time it was produced, like a fossil stuck in amber. It has become a cultural artifact. I am also re-cataloging old nutrition and hygiene manuals published by British and U.S. government agencies. While virtually useless for their original intended purposes today, again, these anachronisms serve as a window to the past, reveal the way the medical profession once thought about things, and serves as a contrast to present practices.

Recorded History is no less than the Foundation upon which Civilization is built. The good librarian must also be a conscientious Historian.